I agree with you on Office 2007, it is a great product. It took a little effort to get used to the new layout, but it was worth it. Of course I am only 53 years old, so I am still young enough to adapt.
Supposedly the revamp of Office into Office 2007 was based on some incredible amount of hours of videotape of how real users used Office. Their goal was to make it much better. They knew people would have to totally relearn, but figured they would have a much better product in the end.
Has that been your experience with the product?